


I Died So I Could Haunt You

by meguri_aite



Category: Aldnoah.Zero (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, and certain psychological trauma, as might be expected from an urobutcher anime, warning: slaine's life choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 01:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2794469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meguri_aite/pseuds/meguri_aite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Shut up, Terran!” Slaine felt his fists tighten, nails digging deep into the skin, and loathed the fact that there was nothing he could do to silence him, not after he had sent the bullet right between his eyes.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Died So I Could Haunt You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Himmelreich](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Himmelreich/gifts).



“Thank you. Enough.”

Slaine cut the soldier off with a curt nod, not wanting to spend more time listening to reports on stubborn movements of the Terran forces than he needed to. All of their laughable attempts at resistance were nothing more than pretense of actual warfare. Their chances of putting up any semblance of a fair fight – chances that had fallen into their hands purely by a thoughtless twist of fate, might he add – were back to nil. They might as well be using wooden soldiers instead of their pathetically outdated Kataphrakts for all the good it would do them against the celestial might of the Aldnoah.

_‘Were you always like that?’_

No. Not that again.

Slaine groaned inwardly, and it must have shown on his face, because the soldier saluted twice and scrambled out of the room. It only made Slaine’s displeasure grow.

“What?” he snapped, hearing his own voice resonate in the empty room.

_‘That pretentious, for starters.’_

The voice was still completely flat and incorporeal, but unfortunately, familiar enough so that Slaine could easily imagine a face to go with it. Deadpan and unremarkable, with the barest hint of a twist to his lips, almost as imaginary as the rest of him, and yet as equally annoying and inescapable.

“I don’t know what you mean, Terran.”

All the years of keeping a blank countenance in front of the Vers military and nobility, no matter what they threw his way, could not have prepared him for this eventuality. This was an aberration, a wrongness that felt more acute than physical pain, and it just had to be the kind too infuriating to ignore.

_‘This, for instance. Referring to us as Terrans. Them. Is it something you’ve been taught in the Vers military, or did you pick it up along the way? Say, somewhat more recently.’_

“Shut up, Terran!” Slaine felt his fists tighten, nails digging deep into the skin, and loathed the fact that there was nothing he could do to silence him, not after he had sent the bullet right between his eyes.

_‘I would think you’d have more trouble allying yourself with either side, but you don’t hesitate before choosing your words at all.’_

The voice in his head was unchangingly flat, but the slight shimmering of air to his left indicated that in a moment, there would be a face to match the voice that haunted him.

“What does it even matter to you?” Slaine asked angrily. “You’re dead. You should be staying dead, and not asking me questions!” You shouldn’t even care, thought Slaine, no one should.

 _‘Why don’t you try asking your supposedly celestial Aldnoah powers?’_ the boy returned, seemingly more interested in the view through the thick glass of the Orbital Station than in this conversation. _‘If they are so all-powerful, they might have an answer. The alternative would be researching those - pathetically outdated, was it? - Terran records, but their explanation would be somewhat unscientific, in this case.’_

Slaine saw the ghost raise his eyebrow in the tiniest of quirks.

“You’re unusually verbose today,” Slaine said, not hiding his annoyance. “Is there any point or reason to this?”

 _‘You tell me.’_ The boy finally deigned to look at him, his face translucent yet still impenetrable. _‘After all, you keep saying I’m just a figment of your imagination.’_

Slaine closed his eyes, thinking that fates must surely have something against him. Why else would he be saddled with a ghost that leeched on his thoughts but remained as incomprehensible as he was as a human, the same one who -

“Enough,” he said, not liking the hoarseness in his own voice. “This isn’t going anywhere.” And neither was the ghost, regrettably.

Enough. Enough. No matter how insufferable his ghost was, he didn't have the leisure to indulge in schizophrenia. He had an enemy to crush and a Princess to protect.

Slaine forced himself to blink slowly and look at the holographic panel at his desk. It was a convenient reminder of the things that needed doing, things that required clarity of mind.

It was time to visit the Princess.

 _‘It's that time again,’_ the ghost boy echoed, fading with nothing but a trace of contempt into thin air.  _‘Don’t let me keep you.’_

 

* * *

 

“Slaine, it's you! Thank goodness!”

Her voice rang through the chamber with pure joy, making Slaine smile as he greeted her, grateful for the warm reception, hopeful that it might last.

"Why are you bowing to me, silly! Aren't we friends? I told you to stop with it years ago," she laughed. "Or does your new uniform make it impossible for you to forget the royal etiquette even when it’s just the two of us?"

Slaine thought he caught a whiff of contained amusement in the air and gritted his teeth.

“Princess, my uniform only reminds me of my wish and duty to protect you,” he answered seriously.

She smiled, a tiny pout hiding at the corner of her mouth.

“Then why don't you protect me from the army of royal doctors? They keep insisting I haven't recovered yet.” She bit into her lip in a familiar gesture of impatience. “I don’t have time to be lying around, I have my royal duties. And anyway, what kind of accident leaves a royal Princess locked in her chambers for weeks, Slaine?”

Slaine felt his shoulders tighten, the heaviness in them weighing him down, but tried not to show it. Maybe this time, it would pass, he prayed, maybe it was getting better.

“Slaine?” There was a quiver in her voice now, not unlike echoes of a child’s whimper – something he hadn’t heard before the Princess was brought to this chamber, something he hadn’t thought possible to hear in her voice – and Slaine hung his head. “Slaine? What happened? Why aren’t you answering me?”

The hardest part was waiting until the first spell was over, he knew it. He was all too familiar with the pattern of the trauma marring the Princess’s mind: first, there would be a slight tremor that soon broke into childlike tantrums, a sight he still found too hard to observe. Then she would seek reassurance, her agitated mind trying to piece together the disjointed threads of her recent memories. But the injury that brutally severed those threads was still too fresh, and the Princess needed time to heal before she could shoulder that burden again. And Slaine would give her that time regardless of what it cost him. He would talk to her about everything and nothing, letting the memories of calmer days to wash over her wounded mind. Nothing to remind her of the actual events of that cursed day in the control chamber of the station. Everything to soothe her mind, to convince her to let him take the burden of her problems.

_‘To tell her lies.’_

Slaine snapped his head up in fury and ended up looking right into the Princess’s eyes.

“Slaine, what is going on?” Her eyes were brimming with unshed tears, and Slaine had to bite back words of vengeance against people who had put her through this.

“You must not worry, Princess,” he said, taking a slow breath to will the tightness from his voice. “Everyone is waiting for you to be back on your feet, as we’re sure you will be in no time. Worrying will just hinder your recovery.”

He watched her hands clench into fists so tight that the delicate skin over her knuckles turned paper-white. He knew better than to put his hand over hers, though, even if his immediate instinct always compelled him to be useful to her. While he hated to deny the Princess the meager comfort his touch might have offered her, he knew it was more important to have a steady control over these uneasy conversations, for her own good, steering them away from the sharp rocks into still waters. He never had any illusions about being able to do anything but mold himself according to her wishes under the lightest of her touches.

 _‘For this time and place, you’re unexpectedly poetic.’_ The flatness of the unwanted commentary had a way of being contrarily expressive.

Before Slaine could start another futile mental argument with himself, the Princess bit back her growing sobs, wiped her eyes with one hand, and put the other one on the red cuff of his uniform jacket.

“Slaine, remember you told me about the poems of your homeland?” she said, facing him with a trembling smile. Slaine’s heart tightened with surprise at the sudden turn in the conversation and pleasure with the direction it took, and he allowed himself a sliver of hope that this was a deviation from the pattern, a sign of improvement.

“Of course, I do, Princess. You seemed interested in them, and I tried to recall all poems about the seasons of the year I could,” he remembered with slight embarrassment – he cherished every memory of the days spend indulging her with stories from the old Terra.

“Yes, they were lovely. I haven’t told you, but afterwards I raided all our royal records, looking for more poems,” she said.

It was surprising, in a way – normally, every new discovery brought about new questions, and she would come to Slaine looking for answers. But he didn’t interrupt her – he never did – and the Princess continued.

“There was this one poem among the ones I read. It wasn’t about the passing of seasons or anything, but the words still stuck with me, and they’ve been on my mind lately, constantly.” She closed her eyes as if to recite without distraction, but Slaine could see that the words came easily to her. “The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.”

She opened her eyes, but Slaine couldn’t meet her gaze. His back was rigid, cheeks burning as if every syllable was a slap to his face, a feeling of mortification slowly pooling in his guts.

“I had never before thought there was any meaning to this poem that I could personally empathize with,” she said quietly. “If anything, I disagreed with its sentiment. But for some reason, now I feels like it refers to someone I know.” She looked at him imploringly, as if hoping he’d give her answers to unasked questions. “As if it refers to someone dear to me.”

_‘Seylum.’_

“Inaho,” she echoed, unaware. “The name comes to my mind sometimes, but I don’t really know anyone called that.”

She hung her head and started sobbing quietly, and Slaine tasted the familiar tang of bitter helplessness on his tongue again.

“Princess, please, don’t torment yourself with nightmares,” he managed to get out. He was aware it lacked conviction and made another attempt, because the Princess’s needs always came first. “You’ve always had vivid imagination, Princess, and this time too, it was probably the poem leaving a lasting impression on you.”

The ghost’s silence was once again more expressive than anything Slaine would have said.

“Nightmares… they are so confusing… must find, must disable, there isn’t much time…”

The shaking of her shoulders got worse as her speech lost lucidity, and Slaine withdrew, gently removing her fingers from his cuff, trying not to shake as the touch seemed to brand his skin. The feverish hysteria was the last stage before the Princess lost consciousness and fell into deep sleep, to wake up hours later with a headache and barely a handful of memories of the previous day. Slaine learned to take it as a small mercy that these selective memories mostly encompassed conversations, letting the fever and the tears melt into oblivion.

_‘You did well, Seylum. You were amazing.’_

Slaine felt his hackles rise at the warmth of the silent comment. How dare he?!

“I was?” To Slaine’s utter surprise, the Princess raised her head and looked to Slaine’s right, where even he did not see anything. “Thank you. I’m glad I was of help.”

With that, her eyes closed, and the Princess fell back on her pillows, dead to everything but her uneasy dreams.

‘ _Thank you_.’

 

* * *

 

“What is the meaning of this?” Slaine knew he was shaking, but he couldn’t stop it. All his efforts seemed to have been spent on keeping his voice low enough.

 _‘Please specify,’_ came the voice, as dispassionate as ever, all traces of emotion gone from it.

“Did you reveal yourself to the Princess?” Angry at the implication in his own words, Slaine continued. “Was it a coincidence? Could she have heard you?”

_‘You persistently assure me I can’t possibly exist. What kind of explanation do you expect to hear?’_

“A sane one!”

_‘If I don’t exist, then wouldn’t it make sanity in short supply per capita in this room?’_

Slaine breathed heavily, hating the cold paradox of this logic. His head swam with things he wanted to throw in the non-corporeal face of the dead boy, but nothing came out.

_‘I’m not sure you have enough time to figure out the existential questions, though. Didn’t you say you have an enemy to crush?’_

As if hearing his words, the hologram lit up with a small buzzing sound, reminding Slaine of the council meeting that required his attendance. Indeed, he had no time to spare before he would have to report on Princess’s condition to the Knights and work on the latest battle plans.

He could do it. As long as he knew what was important and real, he could do it.

Slaine left the room to the silence that gave an unmistakable impression of a skeptical shrug.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide to the best of shoelace fandom connoisseurs ♥
> 
> a certain someone once remarked that Inaho would make the most lethal ghost ever  
> well who am i to disagree  
> xoxo
> 
> the canon divergence tag is half in acknowledgement to the fact that we're not prepared for season two, and half in recognition that whatever it throws our way, that probably won't be it
> 
> many thanks to [darling A](http://throwingscissorsatinternets.tumblr.com/) for the beta and sarcastic commentary <3
> 
> and the poem that Asseylum quotes is [The Second Coming](http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/14163/The_Second_Coming) by William Butler Yeats


End file.
